


Verklempt

by lightasthesun



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano is a Mess, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Light Angst, Love Doesn't Equal Attachment, Missing Scene, Multi, Post Episode: s07e12 Victory and Death, Post-Order 66, Post-Star Wars Prequel Trilogy & Pre-Star Wars: Original Trilogy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regrets, Sad with uplifting ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Writing Prompt, about holding on and letting go of attachments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightasthesun/pseuds/lightasthesun
Summary: In the aftermath of Order 66, Ahsoka struggles to let go of her emotions as well as her attachments.
Relationships: 501st Legion & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Past Relationships - Relationship
Comments: 23
Kudos: 59





	Verklempt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KCKenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCKenobi/gifts).



> This is set months after the events of Victory and Death. I always wondered what happened to Ahsoka's lightsaber shoto—if she lost it or took it with her—because she only leaves her main lightsaber at the crash site. So here is my take on it. Also my writing debut in the SW fandom so —Hello there!

_I feel like something terrible has happened_ , she'd said, running up to her Captain to seek out comfort and reassurance, a friend to soothe her worries. But all she had found were tears, rage and trembling hands, a blaster aimed at her head and a voice screaming at her to _stay back._

Ahsoka had watched, frozen, as her men—brothers who had chosen to wear her face as a sign of loyalty—transformed into cold-blooded killers. In a matter of seconds, their force-signatures skinned of all individuality and any sense of free will. When they opened fire upon her she'd defended herself without a second thought. The bodies had fallen whilst she dodged another bolt. She doesn't think about their names.

Months had passed since then.

Operation Nightfall had ripped the Galaxy of thousands of its brightest souls in one night. The darkness that followed it hardly conceals the blood oozing from various planets and tainting surrounding star systems.

The force is a gaping black hole. Nothing left of its radiant embrace to calm her pounding heart. It had left her with stains of darkness—sticking to her like Nabooian honey— after the first time, she had tried to submerge herself in meditation. She hasn't touched it since.

Ahsoka sighs.

Breathing in the salty air, she lets her eyes wander across the endless widths of the ocean and clutches the lightsaber shoto to her chest. The Kyber crystal inside whimpers and she shivers.

The screams and whispers of the dying follow her every waking moment. And the corpses—broken on the floor like puppets with their strings cut—haunt her dreams. She's not able to shake the guilt weighing down on her shoulders and she knows she never will be.

The shoto feels hot pressed against her chest. It's painful to hold on to it and if she wouldn't know any better she would let it fall into the yawning abyss. But she does. She recognizes the stinging sensation of the blisters on her palms for what it is. Phantom pain. The crystal carries her memories.

She feels like she's back there again.

At the crash site, looking over the graveyard of her men. Bodies she and Rex had pulled out of the wreckage and buried—deaths she alone had been responsible for by deciding to use Maul as a diversion. Brothers she had sworn to protect and wished to die beside. A face flickers in and out of her peripheral vision. The bucket bashed in and the painted-on republic emblem almost unrecognizable, covered in soot and blood. Rex's hands had trembled when he closed his brother's eyes after removing the bucket and revealing a deep cut in his skull. She will never forget the emptiness in them or the Mandalorian words spoken in remembrance.

Still, Ahsoka can feel Rex's presence at her back even though they'd separated long ago. She dreads the day she won't be able to sense him anymore. For it'll be the first day she will be truly alone.

Not for the first time, thoughts of what if's and might-have-been's grace her mind. After all, she had survived the purge and she isn't even a Jedi anymore, hasn't been for some time. If she'd ever even been a good one is up for discussion. Who is to say she is the last one standing? Maybe Master Kenobi or Master Plo had survived too. Surely Master Yoda did and Ana—

Ahsoka looks toward the far horizon and focuses on the deep blue of the evening sky. With every minute that passes the urge to scratch the blaster burn scar on her shoulder bloody grows.

"Anakin—", she says and her voice is steady even as she shifts from feet to feet to hide the tremor in her limps. "—I love you but remembering you hurts more ", her voice cracks and her vision blurs, "than it comforts me right now." Master Windu would be proud of her.

At the edge of a cliffside with the wind nabbing at her cloak and the waves crashing against the rocky shore below her. Its froth spattering skyward, seemingly reaching out to drag her to the bottom of the sea and drown her—Ahsoka sinks to her knees. She's tempted to let them.

The grass is cool beneath her fingertips when she bends forward and hangs her head, trying and failing to get her ragged breathing under control. Her nails dig into the mud, searching for something to help her ground herself. A sob tears out of her chest and she puts a hand on her mouth to muffle her cries.

Anakin and Obi-Wan would be ashamed of her for choosing to save herself instead of hundreds of others. For acting selfishly and not being able to let go of a person she had an emotional attachment to. For disregarding Rex’s potential decision. During the war, it had always been abundantly clear how much her masters' opinions differed to those of the nat-born officers. To them, the clones were sentient human beings. Their opinions and worth were as important as those of any other sentient species. Once upon a time, she would have counted herself to be on the same team.

But she had done something unforgivable. By expecting Rex to choose her above his brothers, she'd decided for him. He'd killed his brothers to save her—leaving Ahsoka breathless in the aftermath. Slowly suffocating on the smell of burned flesh in the air.

Leaving Rex had almost broken her but she'd finally been able to breathe again.

Anakin, she knows, would've found a way to save them all and Rex wouldn't have had to kill his brothers. Her Master would've done something reckless and he would've come out on top at the end nonetheless. Unscathed and smirking—with one hand on R2's dome and the other extended in whatever direction Master Obi-Wan would've gone off to—urging her to _hurry up Snips!_

She misses him.

Ahsoka closes her eyes. Her face a mask of false serenity. Had she been too harsh to him? Anakin had been so happy to see her and she had been happy too but she had been more afraid. Afraid that he would ask her to stay when she knew she wasn't ready yet. Afraid of hurting him again and afraid that he would be mad at her for disappearing without another word, all those months ago. She should've taken the time to talk to him, to hug him and to tell him that she wouldn't leave him like that again. She should've taken the time to talk to Master Kenobi too. Especially on Mandalore. But there hadn't been any time. What had upset Obi-Wan so deeply that he had felt the need to _ask her for help_? 

Ahsoka knows that dwelling on the past doesn't do her any good but she can't help feeling partly responsible for whatever happened to them. She never should've left the Order. At least then she would've died beside them.

One last time, she reaches out to touch Anakin's lingering presence inside the crystal and lets it wash over her. A single tear runs down her cheek and her grip around the lightsaber loosens. She lets go.

It vanishes in a blur of blue and white and takes the last fragment of Ahsoka Tano with it.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [KCKenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCKenobi/pseuds/KCKenobi) for requesting this on Tumblr and simultaneously getting me out of a writing slump!  
> Writing prompt:  
> Verklempt - completely and utterly overcome with emotion. 
> 
> Thank you for reading <3 and come say hello to me on [Tumblr](https://lightasthesun.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated! No matter how much time has passed since the upload :)


End file.
